OT Costa Rica
- Thread starter hounddogs
- Start date
Hello. I have not been there, but I hope after graduating from college this summer, my husband and I go. In my Spanish class last semester we watched a video taken of a group from school that went. The rain forest was really neat, but the city area looked kind of dirty. A professor of mine suggested to our class last semester that if we wanted to go somewhere that wasn't too expensive, we should travel there. Anyway, I hope you have fun, and please tell us how you liked it.
Teresa
Teresa
I went there back in 1998 because my husband was awarded a trip at work. We stayed at a 5 star resort, which was very pretty, but very basic. I liked the fact it was not commercialized at all and very relaxing. It was a hotel that was on the west coast. Playa conchel? Something like that. Anyway, the ride from the airport took you through the country and it was very, very poor. The airport was hilarious. There was a runway, and grass huts and guys hanging off the back of a pick-up that guided the plane in. Not good when you fear flying anyway. They also had guards on the beach where the tourists were. This was prior to 9-11. My aunt has visited Costa Rico for over 20 years and established some very close relationships with some of the folks that live there. She loved it, and knew all the great places to go. Unfortunately, being at the resort, that's the only part of Costa Rica I saw. There were day trips we could have gone on, but since we were there for only 4 days, we decided to just enjoy laying around. BTW, It was during May, and it was extremely hot. I would've loved to go to the rainforest and the active volcano there. HTH.
Jackie
Jackie
When I was an undergrad, I saw Usborne's Essential Spanish (slim book and cassette) with phrases I thought would be really useful for study abroad. That was some 10 years ago, so there might be something newer and equally useful on the market. The company that puts out the small gold dictionaries in all languages also has a phrase book that, as I recall, has phrases for going to the doctor's office. But maybe that's overkill if you're only going on a tourist vacation of a week or two.
Helpful tip on pronunciation for your crash course in Spanish:
When you see the letter "a" in English, the sound could be any of the following: apple, ape, any, ago, etc. Spanish is much less confusing to pronounce, because it has only 5 vowel sounds. Easier to read than English once you get the hang of which letter unfailingly goes with which sound. To help you learn them, I've paired the Spanish vowels with English words that have the same letter-sound combination:
a = father, e = egg, i = pink ("ee" in my English), o = go, u = lunar
So when you see the name "Irene" in Spanish, you know that "i" is like in "pink" and "e" is like in "egg," so it's similar to ee-ray-nay.
Here's some Costa Rican slang: tico/tica is a Costa Rican guy/female, and "pura vida" (pure life) is what they say when they like something.
The Costa Ricans I've met (in the States) are very friendly, fun-loving people. You're going to have a great time!
juliee
Helpful tip on pronunciation for your crash course in Spanish:
When you see the letter "a" in English, the sound could be any of the following: apple, ape, any, ago, etc. Spanish is much less confusing to pronounce, because it has only 5 vowel sounds. Easier to read than English once you get the hang of which letter unfailingly goes with which sound. To help you learn them, I've paired the Spanish vowels with English words that have the same letter-sound combination:
a = father, e = egg, i = pink ("ee" in my English), o = go, u = lunar
So when you see the name "Irene" in Spanish, you know that "i" is like in "pink" and "e" is like in "egg," so it's similar to ee-ray-nay.
Here's some Costa Rican slang: tico/tica is a Costa Rican guy/female, and "pura vida" (pure life) is what they say when they like something.
The Costa Ricans I've met (in the States) are very friendly, fun-loving people. You're going to have a great time!
juliee